Linna,
I believe that the Contract Doc's group needs to publish a fair and balanced "Assignment of Architects Contract" piece as a freestanding document, published as a PDF, and available for any architect to download upon short notice, so that they are able to offer it as a replacement for strongly biased documents put forward by lenders (often at the last minute on a settlement day).
I made this request after being served an onerous Assignment document by my client's bank on the morning of their settlement, and being told by a bank officer in not so many words "you better sign this or you will screw up your client's settlement". The proposed document took away many rights I had under my standing agreement and was very unfair. I scrambled, redacted clauses, inserted substitute language, and was able to return a document before the settlement, at least removing the liability of a spoiled settlement from my shoulders. My detailed account
is posted below, and it was also covered in an article in Residential Architect as well.
See my discussion of this further back in this timeline here at CRAN. I presented this idea to the Doc's group back then, and they refused my request. The reasons they gave were clearly invalid. First they claimed that the B101 already included a clause for assignment of architects contract, to which I reminded them that Architects working on houses are almost uniformly using the B105 which does not include any such clause. They then told me it would be difficult to craft language that could be used in any state because laws vary, to which I reminded them that the clause included in B101 is already offered for use under laws that vary.
I came away from the exchange feeling they were looking for excuses to not act on my request. So yes, you could carry this request to them again. This is clearly a small firm issue, only those using the B105 are completely vulnerable here. It should not have been this way for me. I should have had resources from the AIA at my fingertips, and the Profession should have the ability to respond to this kind of housing industry "rights grab" with uniformity and some solidarity. Otherwise small practitioners are going to find themselves agreeing to onerous terms under pressure.
You can find the previous postings about this here:
http://network.aia.org/AIA/Discussions/ViewThread/?GroupId=1771&MID=5806 http://network.aia.org/AIA/Discussions/ViewThread/?GroupId=1771&MID=3903
http://network.aia.org/AIA/Discussions/ViewThread/?GroupId=1771&MID=3939 -------------------------------------------
Gregory La Vardera
Architect
Gregory La Vardera Architect
Merchantville NJ
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